Fuel Left at Bus Stop in Columbia Heights, Police on Scene

“At 8:22 the Bus stop at 11th and Clifton St had 5 Containers of yellow fuel tanks label ‘Diesel’ and the name ‘Chiaramonte Construction’ handwritten on the side. I call 911 and ask the HAZMAT come out to dispose of these. At 9am police are on the scene making sure no one walks up to these. This bus stop sits in between Duke Ellington HS and Cardozo HS.”

5 Comment

It’s diesel fuel. Why all the panic? It’s not nearly as dangerous as gasoline. This being Columbia Heights, somebody almost certainly stole it and thought they were going to be allowed to board a Metrobus with it. Why not just call Chiaramonte Construction and tell them to come pick them up?

Diesel fuel still can catch on fire, (smokers walking by) especially since one of containers doesn’t have a proper cap. Look closely and one of them only has a black small trash bag wrapped over an opening. Also Philppe this was left at a public Bus Stop in the middle of 2 schools. Calling 911 is the proper response. I also suspect that these containers had been left behind after workers who had finished clearing the streets earlier in the morning.

Not at that temperature. You could drop a lit cigarette directly into any of those jugs and it would do nothing. They certainly still need to be picked up as soon as possible. My first though, too, was that some upstanding citizen tried to board a bus with the cans they walked off with.

They definitely need to be removed as soon as possible, as diesel fuel is nasty stuff if it spills on anything, but the chance of them catching on fire is very low. You could drop a match into one of the containers and it wouldn’t catch on fire.